Wondering What Sparky Cola Kisses Taste Like
by Melissa2
Summary: Trance's thoughts turn into more than she expects while she's sitting in Med Deck, keeping watch over sick Harper


Title: Wondering What Sparky Cola Kisses Taste Like   
Author: Melissa, aka ILH  
Censor: PG   
Central Characters: Trance, Harper  
Spoilers: None really  
Author's Note: It's fluff, more or less. It was inspired by my Harpy Chat topic last night, which is also the title of this fic.  
Disclaimer: Andromeda's characters and the like belong to Tribune, not me.   
  
  
  
Staring at the medical readouts for two hours is a very boring task, even if it might be saving someone's life in the process. That particular someone being Harper. I had pulled a chair up to the side of his bed. His breathing was slow, rhythmic, as well as the monotone bleeps that represented his heartbeat.  
  
My eyes moved from the readouts to his face. His expression was serene, and if he had been laying anywhere else, I could have easily mistaken him to be sleeping normally. The virus hadn't given him a fever, but was still causing severe problems internally. With his weak immune system, he was lucky to have made it this far through its progression. I cast my thoughts away from death, disease and unhappiness soon after they found their way there.   
  
He would, after all, be waking up after his sedatives wore off. The painkillers would last another hour after that. I would give him a drink, and he would complain about the pain. He'd ask to be moved to his quarters, as always. Again, I'd explain to him that the equipment here is needed to make sure that his condition doesn't get worse. It never changed.  
  
Somehow, my mind found its way to Sparky Cola while reliving our conversations in my mind. Sparky Cola was Harper's favorite drink. I had never tried it myself, after hearing Rommie talk about its side effects and what it does to your stomach during digestion. She said it was a miracle Harper's digestive system still worked at all. I hadn't ever seen Harper without a Sparky in his hand when he was off duty. Before Rommie had forbidden it, he even kept one on hand while he was working.   
  
I wondered what Sparky Cola tasted like. If Harper was so obsessed with it, it couldn't be that bad, even if it wasn't the best thing in the universe for his body. He usually drank an entire crate in a month's time. With the curiousity about Sparky Cola's flavor, came the curiousity about what Harper loved so much about it. Rommie said there were over three hundred different brands of cola available to Harper. The odds were very small that he would choose this brand in particular.   
  
From the Sparky Cola ponderings and wondering what Harper loved so much about it, a thought crossed my mind. 'What do Sparky Cola kisses taste like?' My initial response was to toss the thought aside as if I hadn't even had it. I hadn't ever seriously thought about kissing Harper before. Of course, he had flirted with me before, but neither of us were taking it seriously. Were we?  
  
The questions stopped running through my mind while I stared at him. I was glad he was sleeping because I couldn't take my eyes off of him, even if I had wanted to. My eyes trailed from his tousled spikey blond hair to the sweet sleeping expression on his face to the muscles in his arms I had failed to notice before. The last place my eyes settled on were his lips. I would have leaned forward then and kissed him if it weren't for his illness. He was by no means contagious to me, but it didn't seem right.  
  
I stared for a while longer. There was an undeniable attraction. Beka had told me the symptoms of a crush when I asked her what it was. I assumed that a crush was much like a punch or kicking someone, something violent. Beka said the first symptom was denial, and I'd been through more than enough of that over Harper. Then, she said that you feel light and happy, especially when you're around the person you have the crush on. If Harper weren't sick, I would have been light and happy. Beka said that after the lightness and happiness, there was a nervousness and you suddenly become very easily embarrassed. I wondered if this was all going to happen to me. I'd never had a real crush before, so it was a new thing.  
  
"What are you doing to me, Harper?" I asked him quietly, half smiling. "Maybe I just need a long nap and something to eat." I was, after all, more than a little tired and hungry from sitting there for two hours without moving.  
  
Fifteen more minutes passed, and I spent them mindlessly staring at the readouts and listening to the bleeps that showed Harper's heartbeat. He was beginning to stir as the sedatives I had given him wore off. I decided to let nature take its course and give him some water when he woke up. Dehydration was often a cause of death with the virus. Even the water I was giving him directly into his bloodstream might not have been enough.  
  
He groaned and ran his hand through his hair. "Need...Sparky," he said, his throat obviously dry from his voice.  
  
I smiled, almost blushing, realizing how ironic it was that those were his first words after I had been thinking about Sparky Cola so much. "I'm going to give you some water first. Then, we'll see if you're up to drinking it," I said, pouring some water from the pitcher beside me into a glass.  
  
I held the glass up to his lips, since I knew he would be too shaky from the sedatives to hold the glass himself. I tried not to stare at him like I had before. I was almost certain he knew I was staring, though. He tried to drink the whole glass a single gulp, and almost succeeded. I sighed and let him drink the rest of the water, hoping it wouldn't make him sick.  
  
"Thanks, Trance. Now about that Sparky," Harper started.  
  
I smiled at him as I placed the water glass beside the pitcher, trying not to show how nervous he was making me. I realized that was another crush symptom. "Let's make sure you can keep down the water first."  
  
"Hey, Trance, are you sure I haven't given you whatever I've got?" Harper asked, concerned. "You're acting kinda funny..."  
  
"No, I'm fine. How are you feeling?" I asked, trying to change the subject.  
  
"I feel all right. I still want that Sparky, though," he said.  
  
My mind drifted back to Sparky Cola kisses, and I knew I was blushing. I looked away from him and walked towards the door. "I'll be back in a minute."  
  
I hurried down to the storage room and grabbed a Sparky Cola. I walked the long way around back to Med Deck, trying to control my emotions. I stared at the can of Sparky Cola, concentrating on the colors. I assumed if I thought about other things, everything would be fine. All my thoughts somehow led back to Harper, though.   
  
Since I was passing his quarters, I decided to get his favorite pillow. If he couldn't go back to his quarters, I could at least bring part of his quarters back to him. I grabbed the pillow from his bed and held it like a teddy bear. The electric blue background and lightning bolts on the pillow case practically screamed that it was something that belonged to Harper. It even smelled like his cologne.   
  
I held the pillow at my side, as if it meant nothing to me before walking into Med Deck again. The doors slid open to reveal an impatiently waiting Harper. "It's about time you got back. It doesn't take that long to get a Sparky."  
  
"I also got you your pillow. And I was just making sure you didn't change your mind about it," I said, helping him lift his head slightly to put the pillow under it. My hands were trembling afterwards. I had a little trouble opening the can and pouring some into the glass his water had been in. But I knew he would have chugged down the entire can if I didn't do the limiting myself, and the last thing I wanted was for him to get sick.  
  
"Hey! Why can't I have it from the can?" he complained.  
  
"Because it would make you sick, Harper." I handed him the glass and watched his slightly shaky hands clutch it before chugging down what I had given him. "Ah, nothing better than Sparky after two days of withdrawl!"  
  
"What does it taste like?" I asked, pretending not to be serious about the question.  
  
"Well...I can't really compare anything to it. It's Sparky." He shrugged.  
  
I didn't say anything, just watched him watching me. I wanted then more than ever to unlock the mysteries surrounding Sparky Cola kisses.  
  
"What's wrong, Trance?" He turned onto his side and stared at me.  
  
"I'm just thinking, Harper." I smiled for his benefit.  
  
"Y'know that can be dangerous. I've heard of guys who had their brain explode when they did too much thinking and too little talking."  
  
I laughed. Another reason he was such a good friend--he could always make me laugh. "It's nothing that you'd care about. I was just asking myself a few questions."  
  
"Actually, I've always wondered what goes through sparkly purple babes' minds." He grinned.  
  
I poured him another glass of Sparky Cola. "Well, I was thinking about Sparky Cola, actually. After everything Rommie's told you about it, I'm surprised you still drink it."  
  
He took a sip this time and stopped. "I like it, and I'm not gonna let her stop me. And if it was gonna kill me, it would have already done it."   
  
"Why did you pick Sparky? There are so many other options." I stood over his bed, watching him slowly drink the contents of the glass.  
  
"Beka made the mistake of having some on board when she got me off of Earth," he replied. "Actually, she didn't like it herself, but one of her old crewmen did."  
  
"There was something I was wondering more than anything else, though...but I'm not sure if I'm allowed to find out the answer." I was as elusive as I could be from what was on my mind.  
  
"Well, you can ask me anything." He finished the glass of Sparky Cola and handed it to me. I put it on the tray.  
  
I stared silently at him and took a deep breath to calm my pounding heart and trembling body. I leaned over the bed in one quick movement and kissed him. He was surprised, but didn't seem completely disgusted. I tasted his oral medication first, a bitter taste. That soon gave way to a very strong tingly sweet taste that I knew had to be Sparky Cola. Then, the third taste was something I was pretty sure was just Harper. I ended the kiss and blushed a deep shade.  
  
"What great mystery of the universe were you unlocking?" he asked, grinning.  
  
"What Sparky Cola kisses taste like." I smiled back, very pleased with the mystery's solution. 


End file.
